An Unconventional Preview of the 2008 Bay State league Meet

My daughter Joni was over for dinner last night and told me she had been reading my blog lately. "It's been a little boring," she said.

I knew exactly what she meant.

There are times when I settle for simply reporting results gleaned from newspaper accounts, DyeStat postings, and other blogs. I'm never completely satisfied with this use of my blog, however, and it's probably not terribly satisfying to my readers either. It feels like I have a choice: to write about what's on my mind at the moment (and sometimes, there's nothing running-related) on my mind, or to set myself up as a guru of the Bay State league, knowing the top ten runners on every team and what they ran at every meet this year, and make predictions about all-stars, and such.

I find that I am less and less interested in the guru path. One reason, I think, is that I feel that it leads me down a path of seeing runners as numbers, rather than as people. It's a regular temptation because I *like* numbers -- I like to pore through race results and think about the statistical properties of races. For example, last year I spent many happy hours looking at historical results from the Bay State league meet trying to identify "weak" and "strong" years, looking for trends, trying to see patterns.

Numbers don't lie, but they aren't the whole story either. Numbers can't always provide the reasons why a good runner performs relatively poorly, or why a team comes together or falls apart at a critical time. As Jim Blackburn always tried to tell me, it comes down to who WANTS to win. The agate results frequently record, but rarely explain why motivation ebbs and flows.

And by this time of year it does, indeed, ebb and flow... I can't help think about the sleep-deprived seniors working on their college applications, the underclassmen trying to navigate their way through tougher classes. It's a stressful time for everyone, and running is affected by that stress.

So here we are on the eve of the 2008 league meet and what do we know? We know that Brookline's David Wilson is the odds-on favorite to be individual champion in the boys race. We know that the resolute Becca White (Natick) -- last year's individual champion -- will have to contend with the ever-improving Camille Murphy of Framingham.

I am an unabashed fan of these three runners. I am in awe of Wilson's dedication to his training. I am amazed that I have never seen White run a bad race. I became a fan of Murphy while standing next to her mom at last year's Outdoor Track state meet. I could make a prediction about who will win, but...

I am also a fan of the Newton North girls who were so much fun to coach, and continue to be so much fun to follow. It has been a long season for them, and a long journey for the seniors from their freshman year when everything was new and exciting. My hope for them is that they have a few moments to reflect on how special it is to have shared all those training runs, team dinners, triumphs, and failures... Yes, even the failures are precious when you consider that this is the last league cross-country meet they will run together, and that all too soon, they will scatter to separate worlds.

I am a fan of Wellesley's team -- boys and girls. I remember seeing several Wellesley boys at Arthur Lydiard's talk at Regis College several years ago, only a few months before the great man passed away. I remember how Alison Griswold's dad sought me out last year to thank me for mentioning his daughter in this blog. I am excited to see the return of Will Volkmann, the progress of Billy Littlefield and Peter Krieg, and both teams' annual pursuit of state-level recognition.

I am a fan of Needham and their revival in recent years (but I also hope that CvC tires himself out on Saturday so that he'll be vulnerable at Bill's 5K on Sunday).

I am a fan of Weymouth and their manic coach. By the way, everyone should check out Mike Miller's articles in the Weymouth Times. If you think my prose is overheated, check out this article.

And I look forward to cheering for all the other teams that I don't know as well, including undefeated Milton (how did they get so good?).

On the boys side, I'll pick Newton North to win the team title because nobody wants it more, and because ever since Dan Hamilton ran 10:20 on his very first lap of Cold Spring Park his freshman year, he has been one of my favorite runners. Heck, they're ALL my favorites, even the ones I only know from seeing their names in the paper.

But mostly, I want to revel in what it means for all these schools to come together once more, once more into the fray with a group of runners who will never again gather like this in one place.

I've always felt that the league meet is a good-bye meet. Good-bye to this year's league and its stories and characters. Good things are ahead, for sure -- the State Coaches meet, the EMass meet, the State meet (if you qualify) -- but on Saturday, it's farewell to the league for another year.

Good luck to all teams. Have the time of your life.